Reflections on Spirituality and Religion

My last reflection was on Faith, Belief, and Spirituality drawing on the work of theologian Harvey Cox in his book, The Future of Faith.  I want to follow up on that with thoughts and reflections by theologian Diana Butler Bass from an interview on the CBC program Tapestry.   The episode is entitled, Finding god in HGTV: a spiritual revolution http://www.cbc.ca/radio/tapestry/finding-the-sacred-in-unexpected-places-1.3765363/finding-god-in-hgtv-a-spiritual-revolution-1.3765366

Diana Butler Bass looks at Spirituality and Religion as they are manifest today and raises a number of interesting questions and comments. 

Bass first poses the question, is Religion keeping up with the longings and questions of and for the 21^st Century e.g. What are people longing for – compassion and companionship/neighbourliness.  How do we embody compassion?

The God of 100 years ago – hierarchical remote was manifest in the establishment and practice of religion.  This is a God who is a being sitting on a throne somewhere in outer space.  This is contrasted with a God who is imminent, creative, with us; a God who is compassionate.  Do our hymns and architecture need to reflect that?  Is it enough to just reflect this in our theology and sermons and teaching?  A tension between the memory i.e. an idealized view of a golden age of Religion which can be just a few decades ago in some of our lifetimes when Sunday Schools were overflowing and church services were standing room only versus the apparent yearning for something beyond the materialism and competition of Western society today.  

What is missing for the way the 21^st Century does religion?  Concepts of science e.g. the Big Bang – all matter created some 14 billion years ago – we are stardust – what has been happening since is the rearranging of the matter – is this God’s plan?  What might this be leading to us to – perhaps a future like one envisioned by the Omega Point of Teilhard de Chardin.

Is Spirituality opening the door for individualism?  A charge by those who primarily care about religious institutions, that the spiritual movement is a base about self-indulgence.   How does religion connect with what people are longing for?  Does spirituality allow you to sidestep those things that challenge you?  Short answer, yes.  But organized religion is no guarantee that doesn’t happen in a church community. 

Bass proposes that one manifestation of spirituality today can perhaps be seen in the popularity of HGTV.  People are longing for home.   Bass notes that when she refers to her little home in her back yard where she does her writing and puts a picture of it on social media.  She is inundated with requests about where they could get the plans for it.  It is a sign of the desire for a ‘Room of one’s own’ to use the phrase by Virginia Woolf who wrote about it almost a hundred years ago. 

In reflecting on this, I am left with the question of the viability and future of a spirituality that is amorphous and all-inclusive that it means everything and nothing at the same time.  Can region in its structure and practice include and incorporate the aspects of spirituality which will enable people to explore and develop a mature spirituality that will bring them closer to the God which they are seeking.

 

Is Faith Blind

The last three entries of this blog I have been attempting to answer, as best I can, questions that were posed to me:

Can you explain to me your grounding belief in the Trinity? I can’t explain internally the need for formal religion and rules and commitment. 

I agree that when you drill down to the bottom of all... be good treat people as you want to be treated..  try to correct wrongs when you can etc. 

Does it come down to blind faith? What drives you to continue?  Do you ever feel that your energy would better placed in just straight up social justice?

Initially, I ventured into the landmine of the Trinity.  This was followed by a discussion of why I participate in formal religion, and thirdly, the question behind the statement that at bottom the issue is be good, treat people as you want to be treated; in effect, the Golden Rule. 

This week I will respond to the question, “does it come down to blind faith?”  The term ‘blind faith’ can have a rather pejorative connotation.  I sure that it was not meant that way knowing the person who posed the question.  However, often it is used by many people judgmentally implying, how can anyone be so stupid to live their life based on blind faith when it flies in the face of the evidence facing them in that face.  What comes to mind for me when I consider the type of blind faith that will illicit this type of question is people who belong to the flat earth society or that believe that the ̶̶moon landing was staged or that dinosaurs (at least baby ones) were present on the Ark.  I do believe that blind faith in that sense can lead us to places that God doesn’t intent us to be. 

Faith can be more positive if it is not used it in that way.  I recently listened to an episode of Tapestry on CBC radio in which the wonderful host Mary Hynes interviewed physicist David Deutsch.  He revealed in the interview that he has no doubt that science will come up with the answer to the mystery of human consciousness and be able to replicate it in Artificial General Intelligence i.e. robots.  That is absolutely a faith which is based on a belief in the science rather than belief in a divine being.  However, it is positive in that it has led Mr. Deutsch to strive to explore the mysteries of life through the scientific method. 

Human beings are endowed with reason and intellect and I cannot believe that God did not intend us to inquire about God’s creation and, as a result, to develop an understanding of God’s intention for us and all of creation.  That is one of the aspects of Anglicanism that attracts me.  The three pillars of Anglicanism are scripture, tradition and reason.  Following this, I believe that scripture in inspired, but not dictated, by God.  Tradition allows us to follow the time-tested practice of the church but also allows us to consider and develop new traditions.  Finally, reason allows us to use our intelligence, and hopefully our wisdom, to question and perhaps even find answers, to some of the questions which arise regarding how we can live lives that are faithful to God in a world which is changing and often challenges our religious beliefs and practices.

That is the what and the where of it for me and faith.   I know (have faith) that all there is, the earth, the stars and the moons and other dimensions we don’t know about are created by God.  I am a creature of God’s creating and I owe all that I am to God.  I have a duty to try and live my life in an effort to become who I continue to discover God created me to be.  I try and know that I will never fully succeed but I know that is okay with God. 

While I was writing this, I was listening to music on my computer as I have a wont to do.  The song that came up was “You’ve Got me Singing” by Leonard Cohen ̶ St. Lennie as he is in my mind as he is the Lord of song.  The song captures the meaning of faith in my life far better than I can: 

You got me singing

Even tho’ the news is bad

You got me singing

The only song I ever had

You got me singing

Ever since the river died

You got me thinking

Of the places we could hide

You got me singing

Even though the world is gone

You got me thinking

I’d like to carry on

You got me singing

Even tho’ it all looks grim

You got me singing

The Hallelujah hymn

You got me singing

Like a prisoner in a jail

You got me singing

Like my pardon’s in the mail

You got me wishing

Our little love would last

You got me thinking

Like those people of the past

You got me singing

Even though the world is gone

You got me thinking

I’d like to carry on

You got me singing

Even tho’ it all went wrong

You got me singing

The Hallelujah song

I hope that you will keep on singing on your journey,

Exploring the Tapestry of the Mind, Body, and Spirit

This point in my life is one that I am enjoying more than I ever have.  I am fortunate and blessed to spend my summers—actually stretching summer from the beginning of June to the beginning of October—at our cottage in Prince Edward Island.  It is a time and place which are Thin Experiences where the separation of heaven and earth are less well defined than at other times and in other places.

I have had the wonderful experience this summer listening to the tapestry of the archives of Tapestry.  I have always been a fan of the show and particularly enjoy Mary Hines’ discerning and thoughtful interview style.  The depth and breadth of the topics and individuals who are presented on the show provide me with food for my spirit and soul.  Part of the affinity I feel for Mary Hines is one introvert connecting to another.  As she revealed in one of the programs I listened to recently, Mary is an unapologetic introvert. as am I, who revealed her dream is to live in a light house away from the world.  Now I can’t say that I have had that specific dream either in waking life or while asleep. However, I can certainly appreciate her desire.  I have thought that being sentenced to house arrest would be no punishment for someone like me, and perhaps other strong introverts, as it is there that I am at home—not where I live specifically but where I am truly at home.

Tapestry—the program not the spiritual place—is one of the wonders of this life where I can explore the different subject that speak to me in ways that I find make my life more meaningful and make me more the person that God intends me to be. 

In my marathon of Tapestry programs I noticed a number of connections which I would like to share with you.  There were a couple of programs that connected with my understanding of the unconscious forces that are part of the human condition.  Without going into detail the unconscious, as first identified by Sigmund Freud and expanded on by Carl Jung, is that aspect of the psyche that is not readily available to our conscious life.  The energies will most frequently make themselves known to us in our dreams but also in other phenomenon such as waking visions and synchronistic experiences (meaningful coincidences). 

The unconscious forces in people were a connection in the programs ‘Hearing Voices’, and ‘Psychologist Anthony Bossis: Can psychedelic drugs help ease the fear of death’. 

In Hearing Voices, I was struck by the approach taken in the treatment in which the idea of asking the “good voices” for aid the advice for her to “stand up to the bad voices” was presented as an important part of the treatment.  In my understanding the voices which are experienced by people come from the same source as dreams and other such experiences of the psyche.  The idea getting for help from the inner energy is the essence of the individuation process identified by Jung.  In addition standing up to images in nightmares and facing them is a very successful technique in dream work.  The classic way to deal with monsters in our dreams is rather than running from them is to turn around and ask them what they want.  In effect we befriend the energy which is being presented to us.  The maxim that all dreams come in the service of health and wholeness of the dreamer is important in working with dreams.

This approach applies to the experience of people who are participating in the experiment using psilocybin to deal with their fear of their imminent death.  As noted in the New Yorker Magazine article:

The “same force that takes you deep within will, of its own impetus, return you safely to the everyday world,” the manual offers at one point. Guides are instructed to remind subjects that they’ll never be left alone and not to worry about their bodies while journeying, since the guides will keep an eye on them. If you feel like you’re “dying, melting, dissolving, exploding, going crazy etc.—go ahead,” embrace it: “Climb staircases, open doors, explore paths, fly over landscapes.” And if you confront anything frightening, “look the monster in the eye and move towards it. . . . Dig in your heels; ask, ‘What are you doing in my mind?’ Or, ‘What can I learn from you?’ Look for the darkest corner in the basement, and shine your light there.” This training may help explain why the darker experiences that sometimes accompany the recreational use of psychedelics have not surfaced in the N.Y.U. and Hopkins trials.[1]

I embrace the invitation to “Looking the darkest corner in the basement, and shine your light there.” It is very much in line with one of the first steps in dream work which is to engage the shadow.  These are the parts of your psyche—yourself which you do not want to recognize and are often not even aware are part of you.  They lurk in the darkest corners of your psychic basement.  However, as with the other aspects and images that appear in your dreams and in your projections, you need to be in relationship with you and discover what you can learn from them.

It is wonderful to hear about the work that in going on in different areas of our culture that will help people to become more fully the people that God or whatever is your higher power intends you to be.

Thank you for bring such inspiring people with wonderful lives and work to all of us. 

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[1] New Yorker The Trip Treatment Research into psychedelics, shut down for decades, is now yielding exciting results. By Michael Pollan